Anticipatory Action Expert (Consultant) - Karamoja Strong Programme

Anticipatory Action Expert (Consultant) – Karamoja Strong Programme

Location: Kenya, with travel to Turkana, West Pokot and Karamoja, Uganda

Assignment period: Late November 2026 - 31 December 2027

Level of effort: Up to 40 days, including travel: 5 days in 2026 and up to 35 days in 2027

Consultancy rate: KES 30,000 per day

Reporting to: Deputy Project Director, with technical guidance from the Project Director

Application deadline: 30 October 2026

About Samuel Hall and Karamoja Strong

Samuel Hall is a social enterprise that conducts research, evaluates programmes and designs policies in contexts of migration and displacement with offices in Nairobi and across East Africa.

Karamoja Strong is a three-year, Danida-funded programme led by the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), in partnership with APaD, African Women Rising and Samuel Hall. It builds community resilience to climate- and conflict-related shocks in the Kenya-Uganda borderlands of Turkana, West Pokot and Karamoja.

Samuel Hall leads the programme's research and learning and co-leads cross-border climate policy engagement with DRC. This includes participatory scenario planning (PSP) forums, bringing together indigenous traditional knowledge (ITK) and scientific seasonal forecasts to develop practical community advisories ahead of each rainy season.

Purpose of the consultancy

The consultant will provide technical leadership on anticipatory action and participatory scenario planning during the programme’s final year. They will support the development of timely, practical community advisories and assess how communities and institutions use them to take early action.

Key responsibilities

• A. Participatory scenario planning (PSP/ITK) forums

• Co-design two PSP/ITK rounds with DRC and partners (indicatively March and September 2027, ahead of each rainy season), including timing, sites, participants and a target for women's participation.

• Co-facilitate forums in Lokiriama (Turkana), Alale (West Pokot) and Moroto (Uganda) with county and district governments, meteorological services, CBOs, elders, women and youth. Each round is about 8–9 field days.

• Bring together elders' ITK forecasts and seasonal forecasts from the Kenya Meteorological Service Authority (KMSA) and Uganda's meteorological services.

• Draft the three community advisories for each round immediately after the forums, with clear guidance on who does what.

• Collect and analyse evidence of advisory uptake after each round: who received the advisories, through which channels (partners, local radio, barazas, market days, digital), what households, groups and institutions did as a result, and with what results, by gender and location. Lead joint partner debriefs after each round.

• B. Anticipatory action technical support

• Provide the anticipatory action lens to the programme's learning: the early warning and action findings of the Outcome and Learning Assessment, quarterly learning reports and consortium learning sessions. This includes analysing barriers to anticipatory action (timing and format of forecasts, trust, access for women and youth, resources to act, mobility and conflict) and drawing lessons for policy and institutional engagement with county and district governments, meteorological services and cross-border structures.

• If confirmed with DRC and agreed as additional days: support the design of a mechanism that links indigenous knowledge with scientific forecasting.

• Support engagement with KMSA and Uganda's meteorological services on embedding PSP in forecasting, in line with Kenya's Meteorology Act 2026.

• Facilitate the Outcome and Learning Assessment community validation workshops in Kenya and Uganda (January 2027) as the research person in the field, with materials prepared by the learning team. Other inputs to learning products are short written contributions and comments.

• Attend quarterly cross-border climate coordination meetings to present forum findings.

• C. Communications and dissemination

• Provide technical input to a video story on early warning and anticipatory action, and to a webinar on PSP and anticipatory action learning.

• Develop practical lessons and recommendations for policy and institutional engagement.

• D. Initial assignment: November–December 2026

• Review early warning and action findings from the 2026 Outcome and Learning Assessment and contribute to the report.

• Review the dissemination and use of the September 2026 advisories.

• Prepare the joint partner debrief and the design of the March 2027 PSP round.

• Expected deliverables

• Initial technical review and advisory uptake note.

• Community validation workshops and a short feedback note.

• Two PSP rounds and six community advisories.

• Advisory uptake findings and partner debriefs.

• A PSP lessons paper covering advisory uptake, barriers to early action and policy implications.

• Technical contributions to learning reports, consortium sessions, communications products and coordination meetings.

• Monthly workplans and short progress updates.

• Detailed timelines and days allocated to each deliverable will be agreed before contracting. Any additional assignment will require prior agreement.

• Working arrangements

• The consultant will work closely with Samuel Hall’s Project Coordinator, data and learning lead, Operations team and Communications Coordinator, alongside DRC and implementing partners.

• The assignment is intermittent, with more intensive periods around field activities. Invoices must be supported by timesheets, agreed deliverables and progress reports

• The consultant must follow Samuel Hall’s safeguarding, consent, data protection, field security procedures and the programme's approval process for external products.